Good Week!

Hello everyone!

P-day got changed to today this week due to a Quebec holiday. It was an awesome week this week. The conference on Sunday was awesome! Brandon was confirmed on Sunday and he's been assigned home teachers. The branch is doing well with him. President Cannon is leaving on Friday about that same time President Patrick will be arriving. Remember the Stake President from Florida you saw on the broadcast on Sunday? That's president Patrick. It was fun getting a quick sneak peak of what he'll be like. The days are flying by quickly... missions are like rolls of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. We also saw a deer in someone's back yard as well as a chipmunk that ran into a family's house while we were over there. Canada... the rumors and stereotypes are all true... Love you all! I'll write more next week.

Love, Elder Oxbrorow

Full Week

Hello everyone!

It was a full week. On Tuesday We had a few lessons in the afternoon before heading out to Ottawa for the transfer. I enjoyed seeing everyone in the zone. Sometimes it's lonely serving in a far away area ha. On Wednesday I said goodbye to Elder Boehme and then we went and worked with some of the Ottawa elders until the incoming missionaries showed up. When they showed up, Elder Wright and I headed back for Petawawa. We had a dinner appointment and a couple appointments Wednesday night before heading back to the apartment. Sunday was Brandon's baptism! We were super excited for that. On Saturday night we were hammering out some final details when we found out the branch president had injured his achilles tendon so he wouldn't be able to baptize Brandon. I ended up baptizing him as well as leading the music and saying the closing prayer. I felt like I was on the program way too much haha but it's all good and it was an awesome experience being able to baptize him. The sad thing is we forgot to take pictures. :( That's ok.

So my new companion is super cool. He is from a lot of places since his dad is in the Air Force. Most recently he's from Alaska, but not the same place I was in.

We're losing President Cannon at the end of this month. That's going to be super weird.

The pictures are:

The wedding on the 8th

A failed ad we got in our mailbox haha

Elder Wright's birthday!

Eventful Week

Hey everybody!

There was a lot going on this week. It was a bit stressful. That's life. On Monday after P-day we drove down to Ottawa for zone study on Tuesday. Zone Study was in the morning and after that we had a contacting activity planned. Basically all of the missionaries in the mission were teaming up in the big cities and just talking to as many people as possible. I was assigned to Gatineau which is a pretty French city so I got to brush up on my French so that was good. Elder Keenan (my companion for the day) and I contacted 235 people. It was awesome haha. As a mission, we contacted over 10,000 people all in one day. It was pretty sweet. On Wednesday we had splits with the zone leaders so they ended up just coming to our area and spending the night at our apartment. I was with Elder Gamez (Gameth) for the day. He's from Spain so I had him help me out with my Spanish while we were knocking doors. They left for Ottawa Thursday morning.

We ended up having to push back Brandon's baptism so it's scheduled for this Sunday. He's been doing awesome and should be ready. We still had the wedding on Saturday though. It was pretty cool. They're looking forward to being married in the temple a year after his baptism. I'll be finished with my mission by then so I may just have to come back for it.

Saturday night was transfer calls... I'm staying in Petawawa and Elder Boehme is getting transferred to Alma, Quebec (look it up, it's way out there haha). He's looking forward to a good 11 hours of transportation. I will be the new district leader here and my new companion will be Elder Wright (don't know him, just know of him). I'm excited for the change and am Grateful for everything I learned from Elder Boehme.

Love you all!

Elder Oxborrow

Humidity...

Hey everybody,

It's been a hot, humid week here next to the Ottawa River. It's like instant sweat right when you walk outside. Riding bikes makes it even better. Eventually you just accept that your shirt is going to be wet and stay that way. One night we helped a lady in the branch mow her lawn since her husband is away on a military assignment. I've always wanted to mow someone's lawn in proselyting clothes haha. It was awesome. We've started a little service project of garbage cleanup, and we found a frog while we were doing it (see photo)! He was pretty cool but he was scared of us so we let him go. One of the cool things about this area is that a lot of the members have beautiful homes on the river or lakes. This week we had a dinner appointment at one family's place with a beach on the river (see photo). It was pretty sweet. It seems like everyone here lives in vacation homes haha. The mission has been focusing a lot lately on the amount of people we're able to contact each day and one thing Elder Boehme and I have found is that if we go somewhere like the park, we can talk to a lot more people in a lot less time than if we were knocking doors. Sometimes, we happen to be at the park right when the sun is setting which makes for some beautiful views (see photo).

Our investigators are doing well. Brandon is getting married and baptized on Saturday! And then we have transfer calls that night haha. That's going to be a crazy day to be a missionary. We're excited though.

We're heading down to Ottawa tonight for zone study tomorrow. I'm excited to get mail and see the other missionaries. I've been spoiled in my past areas since we were always around a lot of other missionaries. This is my first outlying area. Oh yeah, one more story from this week. So we were knocking doors one day and we knocked on this door and a 20 something year old girl came out and told us she wasn't interested at all. We kept going. A couple days later we went to her neighbor's house (an investigator) to teach him. Part way through the lesson, she happened to show up at his house so we invited her to sit down. She ended up being super cool and down to earth and we have another appointment set up with her. Just goes to show how finding through friends is a lot more effective than knocking doors haha. It's easy for people to shoe us off even if they might have some interest, but when it's a better situation they're usually more willing to chat.

Anyway, I'm still alive and doing well. Oh and you don't have to feel bad about not sending me something last week it's not a big deal. It was just another day like any other.

Love, Elder Oxborrow